The present invention relates to a tool management method of a die bonder and a die bonder, and particularly to a method suitable for improving the production capability of a production line using a die bonder by managing tools that are replaceable in accordance with a semiconductor chip mounted by a die bonder to prevent wrong operations at the time of production.
A die bonder is a device by which semiconductor integrated circuits (semiconductor chips and dies) are mounted on a printed substrate.
As a procedure of mounting a semiconductor chip on a printed substrate by the die bonder, a position (die pad) of the printed substrate on which the semiconductor chip is mounted is, at first, coated with a paste (adhesive) by a preform head.
On the other hand, a plurality of same patterns are formed on a semiconductor wafer, the semiconductor wafer is cut off and separated from each other for singulation as semiconductor chips, and the array of the semiconductor chips is maintained by a sheet of the semiconductor wafer. Then, a bonding head is moved downward from the upper side of the semiconductor wafer and a pin of a push-up unit is pushed up from the lower side to separate the semiconductor chip from the sheet by collaborative work of the both, so that a collet of the bonding head is allowed to suck the semiconductor chip. Thereafter, the bonding head is moved on the die pad, and the semiconductor chip is placed on the die pad for bonding.
In such a die bonder, tools of the preform head, the bonding head, and the push-up unit are replaceable in order to adapt to various types of semiconductor chips mounted on the printed substrate.
For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2005-32828 discloses a technique in which a trajectory of a bonding head is changed in accordance with the size of a semiconductor chip.
As described above, it is necessary to replace and mount the tools of the preform head, the bonding head, and the push-up unit in the die bonder in accordance with the semiconductor chip mounted on the printed substrate. At this time, in order to confirm whether or not a mounted tool is adapted to a product to be produced, an operator himself or herself has visually checked a number given to the tool and the shape of the tool.
If a wrong tool that is not adapted to a product is mounted, the die bonder device stops. Alternatively, even if the die bonder device is able to run, there occur problems such as deterioration in quality or breaking of the printed substrate and the semiconductor chip in the worst case. There has not been provided a scheme of checking wrong mounting of tools by an operator from the past.
Further, there is a possible management method in which a bar code is attached to a tool and is read by a bar-code reader when the tool is mounted.
However, the use of the bar code forces an operator to read the bar code every time the tool is mounted. In addition, the ID of the bar-code needs to be associated with the specification of the tool to be held as a table, causing a problem in management of tool information that is increasing from day to day. Further, history information of production using the tool cannot be stored into the bar code.
The present invention has been achieved to solve the above-described problems, and an object thereof is to provide a tool management method of a die bonder in which tools are automatically managed to lighten the work load of an operator, and wrong mounting of the tools is prevented to realize advanced production management in a die bonder in which the tools are replaceable.